mhschmieder wrote:As for Finale, I'm guessing it is updated EVERY year, and generally around the time that fall semester begins at most universities? If so, I may hold out for Finale 2013, as it seems that would just be a few months away by now. And maybe there'll be a grace period again for free updates if Finale 2012 is bought in July or August.

Rumor has it - at least in the Finale forum - that they are NOT coming out with a Finale 2013. There is supposed to be a major maintenance update, but that's it. This will, indeed, be a different business model for them.

I've used Finale for years, but I chose not to update to Finale 2012. I'll see what they come up with for the update - I've been real happy with Finale 2011, however!

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:There is no paper manual available from Make Music. Maybe a third party book is out there. There used to be one for earlier versions but I doubt there is one out for F2012 yet. I miss the paper manual very much.

I used to buy the print manual but, when they went to 4 pdf pages to one print page, I gave up. I am not a fan of the .pdf files but they are better than nothing.

I skipped the 2012 update. I tend to do them every two years... or three if none of the new features appeal to me. I won't miss a 2013 update if there is none. The way that I use it, it's pretty stable - same for my daughter.

They have lowered the Finale 2012 upgrade to $99 through June 15, 2012. Got this via email:

In a recent Finale blog post, Finale product manager Justin Phillips outlined some exciting changes for the Finale product line, and announced that our follow-up to Finale 2012 will be released NEXT year.So if you've been waiting for "this year's model," wait no more: Finale 2012 is it!

MakeMusic has updated Finale 2012 to 2012b, a free, downloadable update for Mac OS X and Windows. Broader in scope than past free updates, 2012b adds to all the features found in previous versions of Finale 2012 with:

"Finale 2012's ScoreManager controls how your staves look and sound – so you can focus on your music. More Garritan sounds expand your sonic palette. Unicode font support means you can display any font character you wish. These are just a few of the many innovations in Finale 2012, all designed to whisk you from inspiration to applause.Now, for a limited time, you can upgrade to Finale 2012 for $99.

Yea I don't know. Its hard to justify all the Finale upgrades. When I was scoring some stuff for orchestra a few years back, I tried Finale and ended up doing the whole thing with Overture. It was recorded by 80 piece orch. A lot of people were commenting to me about how great my scores looked and they were all complaining about all the headaches they had with Finale trying to make their scores look right. Finale is kind of the industry standard in a way and if I were actually going to publish something I would definitely use Finale, and grind my way through the issues to make my scores look exactly how I want them to look. In recent years they've been adding a lot of cool features for educators as well.

But personally, for most of us, its just way overkill and kind of complicated and the way the program has evolved over the years makes it difficult to learn. Sibelius is somewhat easier to learn, but also burdened with a lot of capability that most people don't need. For producing gorgeous traditional scores, I reccomend Overture. If you are into composing and being able to hear the mockup as you compose, I rather reccomend Notion, which is fabulous sounding and 100x easier to use than Finale. If you need to publish, then Finale or Sib of course.

Every year Make Music comes out with some small incremental updates for $139 which is always too much cost to justify the small set of features they are adding, but some critical bug fixed that you really need fixed. Its a money pit unless you're into publishing.

If you need to precisely set page elements in great detail I have found Finale to be the best current option. It's not perfect (what is?) but if all your doing is lead sheets or simple charts, other options can work as well. While I've has some issues from time to time with Finale I've never been left in a position where a project was not on time or looked bad. Headaches from time to time for sure, but Sibelius was a constant headache for me. Not unlike the first time I used Performer. LOL.

you say simple charts, whatever that means, but I have done several movie scores for 80 piece orchestra, including the conductor score, all the parts, some non-traditional 20th century techniques even, had to move things around and make it look just right, it was plenty capable and easy to do with Overture, and I would not call those "simple charts". Some other peers of mine were using Finale and my scores made theirs look like junk.

Finale does have more ability to deal with pretty much any font you want, and some really really esoteric stuff. There is a very wide gap between "simple scores" and "esoteric stuff". I still claim finale is overkill for most people, even doing some fairly complicated things. Its just that people have become entrenched with it and hard to move on.

I did one orch project wtih Overture and it came out so well that the next time I started out with Finale and quickly realized I was wasting way too much time and went back to Overture.

Hey, opinions differ and use what works for you, but don't underestimate the notational power of some of these other programs.